Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Ezra Koenig (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Ezra Koenig is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter of the band Vampire Weekend. He co-founded the group in 2006 while attending Columbia University. Vampire Weekend has released several critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums, blending indie rock with elements of world music. Beyond his work with Vampire Weekend, he is the creator and host of the radio show “Time Crisis” on Apple Music’s Beats 1. He has collaborated with various artists across different genres, such as Major Lazer, Charli XCX, and Beyonce, notably co-writing and co-producing the song “Hold Up” on Beyoncé’s critically acclaimed album “Lemonade.” He has been involved in various other creative projects, including an animated series called “Neo Yokio,” which features the voice talents of Jaden Smith, Jude Law, and Susan Sarandon, among others, and premiered on Netflix in 2017. ------ Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: Lucy https://lucy.co/tetra ------ LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra ------ Squarespace https://squarespace.com/tetra ------ House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra

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You know, when I go back to the beginning and I think about starting a band and saying, well, I don't have to make every decision, but I want to make these decisions. I also recognize that there were times when I had offers to be in other bands. And I just realized like, no, because there's a certain thing that I want to do. And so of course, I've always like, it's never been hard to understand why people might wanna do things outside of the band.

How could I possibly judge that? And especially, I have such a unique relationship to singing words that I wrote. I didn't write every single word in Vampire Weekend and write every single song, but you know, a high enough percentage that I can say that's my specific relationship is singing words that I wrote. So I also recognize that that might not be for everybody.

It's hard for me to imagine a career in music if that's not the primary mode I have. You know, I've worked with, on a handful of occasions, I've worked with other artists or have a couple credits as a songwriter or producer or something, but you know, I always come back to, I have this story that I'm telling through words and it's flexible enough that there can be huge contributions from other people. Do you think of it as a personal thing that is meaningful to you, or do you think there's some connection between your voice and lyrics you wrote that has a different power? Do you think you could sing someone else's words and have the vocal be as good, or is it not about that?

I mean, I can sing other people's words and feel a deep connection to it. And I think I have a unique voice. I just don't know if I'm, you know, if my voice is strong enough that it demands the world hearing my take on it in the way that like sometimes a truly great singer who has so much control over their voice hearing their interpretation of a song is very special. I wouldn't say that, you know, but we've lately we've been busting out this little country medley that we've been doing and there's one part and you know and it's kind of like fun it's mostly a country shelf but there's one part we and it's kind of like fun, it's mostly a country shelf, but there's one part we go into,

Sin City by the Flying Burrito Brothers, and I love singing it, because I actually feel so connected to it and I love the words and I love trying to do my best, but again, there's no part, but that's a live thing, there's no part of me that's like- How'd you pick it? I mean, as with so many things in Vampire Weekend,

it kind of started as a joke, because that song is, I actually haven't researched it enough, but I assume it's a critique of L.A. and maybe not just showbiz culture, but you know, business-y culture. So I think it just started having a laugh with the guys about like, imagine next time we play the Hollywood Bowl, if just out of nowhere, we get very serious and say, we have something

to tell you Sin City. Which part of me, I do believe in my heart is an important message. And then a part of me is also just like how surprising and weird would that be to start kind of like getting a little fire and brimstone at the Hollywood Bowl. And then we built this whole country medley where we were kind of taking one of our songs married in a gold rush, which is, you know, using some classic country metaphors about gold, gold rushes, mines. And then so I started thinking about songs that had to do with gold.

And so then naturally this fit, because in our little medley we talk about after we go into all the gold in California, and then there's a little bit where we talk about, well let's say you do come to California and you win this game, and you get yourself a house in the hills and get yourself a nice office on the 31st floor, do you really think that'll keep out the Lord is Burning Rain? And then we kind of go into it. And so on the one hand, there's the fun of just linking all these songs with this classic American imagery of gold and mines.

But then, you know, there is a, of course, there's the religious angle. If for you, you know, Satan is a malevolent force who's always lying in wait to take you down. But the idea of that a golden door won't keep out the Lord's burning rain, whether you look at that through a religious lens or just the idea that nobody's protected from suffering in this life,

and the idea that you can prevent that suffering through pure materialism is absurd. So no matter what, there is something moving to me about that song. suffering through pure materialism is absurd. So no matter what, there is something moving to me about that song. That's on the fourth album. Yeah, Married in the Gold Rushes, yeah. Going into that one, what was different?

Fourth album. I'd already had this huge feeling of change. An era ending, the early days being over, my 20s being over. So first I took a lot of time off, and also I really did question, as you have to every now and then, do I really wanna be doing music forever? Like we kinda did it, you know?

I really thought we'd gone about, at least in New York, we'd gone from campus parties to an arena. Okay, what's next? Giant Stadium, which is now called MetLife Stadium, but it's hard for me to say. I grew up with Giant Stadium. We're not going to go to Giant Stadium. So in some ways, I was kind of like, yeah, so we did that.

So to continue would really require something beyond just the fuel of ambition, you know, the fuel of bigger and better. So I naturally want to take some time off and really think, you know, what do I want to do? What do I have to say as a songwriter? What would the next phase of Vampire Weekend potentially look like? And yeah, and I already had songs that I wanted to work on, so it wasn't dire in the

sense of like, I have no idea. Like no, I'd already been working on Harmony Hall for a while, like I knew that that could be an important song for the next record. But I also had this sense of like, well, what comes next? And then I kind of realized, like, you know what comes next after your kind of like dark, serious, critically acclaimed third album is have some fun again, like a big open double album. And that didn't mean that I didn't have deep, intense sentiments in my soul that I wanted

to get out. But I also realized, no, it's time for our double album. Probably the one I thought of the most at that period was Springsteen's The River. And I think the thing that I just kept thinking about with The River was like, which he made after Darkness on the Edge of Town, which I was like, oh, maybe Modern Vampire

is kind of like our darkness on the edge of town. And the thing I loved about The River, I was like, I just love the fact that there's like the song The River, which is intense and moving, and there's those songs like, Stolen Car and stuff, that are intense, you know? That are the seeds of Nebraska. But then there's songs like,

Ramrod and Little Girl I Wanna Marry You and Sherry Darling, and I was just like, you know what? I had to like, zoom out again and say, is Modern Vampires the sound that Vampire Weekend's been heading for? Is the early work juvenileia? And this is like, okay, now we understand. And I realized, no, that's,

Modern Vampire is a very important album, but it's one aspect of our identity. And my vision of Vampire Weekend is not a chart where we start at fun simplicity and we get, every album get more serious and less fun and less sense of humor. Of course not, that's not me, that's not the DNA of the band.

So there's something about the river and that idea of the profound next to the mundane and even the smart next to the mundane, and even the smart next to the stupid that was so compelling to me, and that got me more excited than ever to make an album that was long, and that had, for whatever reason, I felt like we had to have bare minimum 17 tracks

to really feel like a double album. There was times I was thinking like 20, 22, but ultimately I capped it at 18 that felt right. And then I started working more closely with Ariel on some stuff and I started to really get in the groove with him and we started to establish more of our unique rapport, just the two of us. And then suddenly the fun started to come back. And it took a minute too, because I was like, this is gonna be our first,

as much as some people might think Modern Vampires was our first grownup album, because it was our first quote unquote serious album, to me, and this is no knock on that album, it's some of our most important and best work, it's still the seriousness of youth. It's very much a 20-somethings version of seriousness. And so it was kind of exciting to me to start to imagine,

not like, oh boy, the era we're a part of is over. And I have people all the time telling me, dude, rock is so dead. It's so played out. People always said bands are played out. People were delighted in that. So I also needed a couple years to realize, wait a second, I love that shit.

I love working in a dead medium. I love when people say something is uncool and played out. So it was good to have that time off to get kind of excited again and be like, right, this Vampire Weekend era can have genre experimentation, can have simplicity, you know, and maybe also I finally, after Modern Vampires, I also started to care less about like, well, what if there's some low hanging fruit for people to call it dumb or slight or whatever.

For the first time in my life, I was like, oh, good, you know. What would be a good song that you think would be a representative song of it? I'd be tempted to say Harmony Hall, but in some ways, the song that sums up what I'm talking about the most is probably This Life. Because that song, to me, it embodies the kind of duality I was just talking about. You want to play a little bit?

Well, sure. Well, and even to me, the opening line is just one of those lines. There's a part of me that wanted to get a little simpler. To me, like, step is the epitome of, I guess, my lyrical approach that's impressionistic and kind of my wannabe rapper side, you know, using weird images and jamming stuff together, but still trying to pull real meaning out of it. And then when I wrote... Baby, I know pain is as natural, somebody who loves Step might not immediately think that's a masterpiece, but I was like, I was like, this is the other side of the

coin, you know, because I'm, I don't know, maybe I'm not quite as pretentious as some people think I am. You know, it was really sad to me? I mean, you'll appreciate this, but one time early days we covered the Tom Petty song, Walls. I love that whole era, I love Wildflowers and all that stuff. So, Walls, I remember we performed it, some weird little thing at Joe's Pub,

and I remember at the time I was just so into that song. Cause you got a heart so big, you could crush this town I can't hold on forever. Even walls fall down or come down? Fall down. And I remember, whatever, this is probably our first or second album. Maybe people knew us for

Who Gives a Fuck About an Oxford Comm, or they thought of us as the Columbia kids. And either before or after the song, I said, this is a Tom Petty song called Walls, you might remember it, it was a movie soundtrack. And I said, the lyrics are so good. And I just remember then later I saw somebody had written it up for a blog

and they wrote something like, and then Ezra with a smirk dismissively said, as if I had said, oh, and Walls, these lyrics are so good. I swear to you, I said, these lyrics are so good. They saw us in a certain way, so they heard what they wanted to hear. And first of all, I don't need to tell you that the idea of dissing Tom Petty as a lyricist

is horrific to me. And especially at that time, you can imagine, I was thinking, all right, cool, The idea of dissing Tom Petty as a lyricist is horrific to me. And especially at that time, you can imagine I was thinking, all right, cool, like Oxford comma, whatever, these lyrics reflect my sensibility. But I should be so lucky that one day I can say something as simple but meaningful as I can't hold on forever, even walls fall down. Because also, you know, I've always been interested in the fact that, especially with music, but really with everything,

simple and complex, I don't even like using these words, but smart and dumb, it's so obviously a yin yang. The smartest people, they let the dumb remain. And I've always been obsessed with the fact that I've known so many dumb smart guys, and I've known so many dumb smart guys and I've known so many smart dumb guys. And the idea that... It's the idea of high and low together is always interesting.

Totally. Yeah, exactly. I mean, arguably that's what it's all about. And so there was something about, you know, baby, I know pain is as natural as the rain. I just thought it didn't rain in California. Because even the character who's sang that is a little dumb. Of course it doesn't rain in California. It's such a great line.

And it's to me that it's a bit of a much better album. It didn't used to rain in California. Something's changed. Oh wait, wait, yeah. Ever since that song started raining more. But I know that there's a song, there's that old song, it never rains in Southern California. But even-

It's a great song, by the way. Yeah. That song. I need to revisit that. I know the title better than I know the song itself. I'll play it for you. It's such a good song. Albert Hammond, Sr., right?

Yeah. Yeah. Got on board a westbound 747 Didn't think before deciding what to do All that talk of opportunities TV breaks and movies rang true Sure and true Seems it never rains in Southern California Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before It never rains in California Beautiful song. Yeah, excellent. Even like we were talking about before, writing a song that uses a gold rush as a metaphor

for something emotional or uses an empty mind as a metaphor for something. And then you hear a song that's talking about raining versus not raining and what does that mean? Even that is a different approach to songwriting that I wanted to tap into where a song like Step, you know, obviously you don't write a song like that unless you really want to do your own thing. I mean, obviously it's very inspired, indebted to the originators, but you know, who gives a fuck about an extra comment?

That's where you want to say, well, what makes me different than my peers? And then other times, you realize that you wanna tap into the shared imagery of the history of songwriting and that even just to do my little spin on a California rain metaphor felt fresh and exciting to me in a way that expensive words didn't at that time. Yeah, it also is like it's playing in a timeless tradition. So what you're writing is up against the greatest songs of all time versus quirky cool lyrics that speak to today.

Right, yeah. It's a different thing. that speak to today. Right, yeah. It's a different thing. Yeah. It's such a funny paradox because one type of listener might hear the simplicity of that and feel like it's a step down, whereas I love the way that you put it. It's a step up to the big leagues is more how I feel.

It's what Leonard Cohen calls the tower of song, which to even, again, I'm not trying to compete with the goats, but even just to operate in that tradition is... It's daunting. Yeah, right. It's daunting. It's big. Yeah. No, and that's probably why on that song, you know, the pre-chorus comes from a Conan.

You've been cheating on, cheating on me. I've been cheating on, cheating on me. I've been cheating on, cheating on you. You've been cheating on me. But I've been cheating through. I changed it at the end, but he had this great early song called Tonight where he said, you've been cheating on, cheating on me. I've been cheating on, cheating on you. And even now, you know, now with time it feels normal, but even in the Vampire Weekend universe up till that point,

even the relationship songs were so shrouded in oblique imagery that even to use the word cheating felt bold to me. Yeah. It was out of the vocabulary of Vampire Weekend. Totally. And so when I heard, so I was very grateful to Makonnen, of course he's a songwriter on this,

because hearing him say it, I was like, first of all, I was like, wow, that's like some, it's like a Shakespearean comedy. You've been cheating on me? Guess what, I've been cheating on you. Just like the human absurdity of we're both playing each other, but hold on. Maybe I'm the one who's been cheating

through this whole life. And so, yeah. Yeah, the cheating through this whole life, when you get to it, can I'm the one who's been cheating through this whole life and so yeah. Yeah, the cheating through this whole life, when you get to it, can you sing that part, the pre-chorus into the chorus? You've been cheating on, cheating on me. I've been cheating on, cheating on you. You've been cheating on me.

But I've been cheating through this life. me but I've been cheating through this life and all its suffering oh Christ am I good for nothing? When you sing it, two things. One, I'm almost welling up with tears. And on the word, on when you say this life, just now, just like the first time you played it for me, I felt a chill up my spine. Wow. Because it's, the setup is so kinda casual and friendly,

and then it turns into this like a metaphysical thing. It goes from the mundane physical world to, and this is a symptom of everything in my life. And it's heavy. Because it's funny, I mean the lines, it's funny, you've been cheating on me, I've been cheating on you, it's funny. But then when the singer realizes, but I've been doing this my whole life, I'm cheating on life, it's just, it feels like a tremendous weight.

Right. It feels like a tremendous weight. Right. Yeah, and in some ways, it's also interesting too, here, like going through all these things with you, because of course with every album, there is naturally the artistic tendency to want to push off or say, I did that, I want to do something else. And I try to think about, well, what's the dialogue between Modern Vampires and Father the Bride if we look at those songs? And I think of, like when I talk about Modern Vampires as being some of the seriousness

of youth, there's an aesthetic sense of that. Even when I think about the characters and the worldview, there's a lot of talk about the external difficulties of life. You know, there's so much death. And again, the kind of way you think about death when you're young and you barely know anybody who died, and you probably never thought about you dying, and you never had to comfort people, you know,

dealing with death and all that heavy stuff. Of course, some people have, but I hadn't. And of course, that's one way of being where you're kind of like, wow, can't believe all this bad stuff is out there, but it's very much about the world delivering bad stuff to you, and boy, that one feels unfair.

And so I think there's also something as simple as that song is that I kind of liked about a character, rather than focusing on the bad things that the universe delivers to them, focusing on the way maybe they've been cheating through life and maybe they've been ungrateful. Or maybe, because also I think that's the thing

about that pre-chorus as we kind of go deep on it is to realize a lot of people, if they found out someone was cheating on them, they'd be very angry, even if they were cheating too. That's human nature. I can't believe you'd do that to me. Well, you did it to me too? Well, that's different, right?

That's the human nature. So I love the idea of like, it's heading there. It's almost like, how dare you cheat on me? And then it's like, I'm gonna drop the circumstances for a second and just think about my own relationship to it. And so in that sense, I can, as we contrast these, I can really see how this song is, flips some of those feelings from the previous album.

It's so good. It's so powerful. I love it. Also, is this in that window where you began your relationship? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is. You know, it's funny.

After the third album and before the fourth album. Yeah, no, that's when we got together. And yeah, it's funny because it always annoyed me a bit. And not everybody did this. And again, who cares? But at the time, it annoyed me a bit that because our son was born so soon before the release of this album, Father of the Bride,

and maybe because father's in the title, there was so much talk about fatherhood and family and how that must have impacted the album. And of course, as me, as somebody who works on songs for years, sometimes decades, I just wanted to be like, guys, not only do you not really know what it's like to be a dad until a few years in to having a kid, I didn't even have a kid when I wrote these songs.

I didn't even, she wasn't even pregnant yet. So there was some part of me that was like this obsession with fatherhood and maybe it's also because there's a dad rock influence on the album. Again, I can forgive everybody that they're allowed to have their own opinions, but it's funny, I kept being like, guys, maybe I did it to myself, but I was like, guys, there's no relationship to fatherhood in here. But there is a relationship to adulthood. It has been cherished in tribal wisdom traditions for thousands of years.

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You said it, it's like the first three albums are, you get serious through young eyes. And then the fourth album is the first one examining adulthood and taking into account a father image is representative of adulthood. Yes, right. It really is. It's an archetype of adulthood.

You might not know what it's like to take care of a child yet, or the feelings that that has or whatever, but exactly. It's an archetype of adulthood. And you asked me about the relationship starting, and I think about some of the songs on that album, I totally think of it as like a childless album, but I think of it as an adult album, and maybe there are aspects of adult relationship.

And that song, This Life, also has like the, it's simple, but... Baby, I know love isn't what I thought it was, cause I never known a love like this before, yeah. And then that goes into the, then there's an instrumental thing, even cheating on, cheating on me. I'm not saying I'm so Zen that if somebody was cheating on me all over town that I'd be like, hey, it's all good. I got to work on myself.

But I like the idea that within that same song, you have somebody talking about, I didn't know what real love was like, and also having this funny pivot about cheating, not letting the song sit in anger or judgment or victimization, and yeah, realizing maybe a tiny thing about what it means to be an actual adult and your relationship to other people. Also interesting about collaboration, because the Cheatin' On, Cheatin' On Me was started with Makonnen.

And maybe that was more his experience, singing his experience. Your response to what you changed at the end is what made it the adult part. Right. Like, you're playing the adult character in the story, and in the collaboration, you get to use this cool phrase that was written by a younger person

about a younger experience. It's interesting. Yeah. I haven't thought about it that way. But I don't know if this is my favorite song on Father Bride necessarily. I think we purposefully kept it pretty simple. There's some pretty cool Ariel production moments in there. But there's a version of it that had that Vampire Weekend unexpected genre contrast.

There's a version that the groove was basically like reggaeton, like the bonk, ka, bonk, ka, and then we had Greg Lee's shredding pedal steel over it, and it was like this reggaeton country song, and it had more of that feeling that sometimes I hope people get from some of our music, which is like, whoa, I never heard those things paired together.

It was really cool. And I still, somewhere on my phone I have videos of just like Greg Ombra, no, no, no, no, like beautiful country licks, pedal steel licks over reggae song. But we still kinda made it more spare and stuff. So I think it might not be the song on the album where we really have a lot of fun with the production

or the most interesting. And yet, if I'm ever sitting at the piano or a guitar, I just do find it's a song I like to come back to a lot. Think about it. It's a beauty, I love it. Oh, thank you. And then what was it like touring? So the fourth album is the first time you're touring

without Rostam in the group. Right. And how did it feel? How was it different? Well. What else changed? Well, yeah, a lot of things changed. I mean, I was becoming more of a deadhead at the time,

as my biggest influence was in some way my buddy Jake's Grateful Dead cover band. Because I remember in that kind of funny period in the years after Modern Vampires when I really felt a little bit like something had ended, a little bit disconnected from what was going on. I felt like I was starting to lose maybe something that I had some pride in, which was like a real sense of like what's cool or something. And I felt a little bit uninspired and that was the first time I saw my buddy Jake's dead cover band Richard

Pictures playing to 20 people at a little party and there was something special about seeing a cover band and my buddy Jake is an artist, a visual artist, so he's a painter and so just to see that true love of the game was so refreshing after having navigated the business. And so when we started to put together the live band, and I always see any sort of change, of course, can be a huge opportunity. So there was something about, I knew one way or another that we weren't just gonna replace Rossum with one dude.

We could've, just find somebody to cover some keyboard and guitar parts, but it just seemed like such a great opportunity to do something different and when I saw the classic 70s Dead lineup and I was spending a lot of time every night watching some old Dead shows and there's something about the two drummers, the Donna, the dedicated keyboardist. I was just like, this just looks so much more fun. And so, and also I needed something to get excited

about because I didn't want to go back to that feeling I was describing of feeling a little bit like what's the point of this on the Modern Vampires tour is the vibe off. Like it needed to be celebratory, it needed to be exciting. And we found the right people. And then suddenly touring felt less like an obligation and more like something actually special and fun. And then on top of that, you know, we finally had enough material that we could switch up the set list

and let people take solos and do more covers and have a bit more fun night to night. And that's something that me, CT and Bayo really came together on. CT is lifelong fish fan, he has roots in the jam world. Bayo's always had a great knack for making set lists and kind of knowing how to run band practice and remembering all the parts and like the,

and so we could really come together and kind of treat the show more as like a celebration. So in that sense, it became the best touring experience because it just made touring feel different. Tell me about the feeling in the rehearsals before you did any shows with extended band. What did it feel like in rehearsal? It felt great because, like I said,

there was always a duality and at times a tension between the fact that Vampire Weekend is a band. Always remember that our biggest song, Apunk, everybody contributed to. As much as I'm proud of my songbook as a songwriter, I didn't come up with Hey Hey Hey on Apunk. And truly sometimes I think, what if we didn't have that? Who knows? So we've always had that duality where the band aspect is very important. But of course,

I feel my voice as a songwriter and my freedom as a band leader is also important. And there's times where that felt, maybe made things feel unsettled. And there's something about suddenly realizing, well, whatever I might do in the studio with Ariel, when I bring it to the practice room and I say to the guys, I have no idea how this should sound live. And suddenly everybody gets a chance to throw out some ideas and say, wait, what if we went into this other song? Or wait, I have an idea. Then I started to realize the live and the studio side can be more linked than I thought, and even in kind of exciting ways.

So for instance, I knew that the song Sunflower, which is this very simple, so kind of jammy riff. So kind of jammy riff. So I don't have a pick, but you know, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. It's a Mixolydian riff, kind of jammy, but me and R.L. wanted to keep it short on the record, so it's like two and a half minutes or something. And then I realized, I love this riff, there's something I really like about this song, but when we just play the two and a half minute version live, it feels underwhelming or something. And then to present that to everybody and say, like, where can we take this? And people are throwing out ideas and trying this and that.

And I said, well, what if we made it more like the dead? And then somebody else was like, I remember kind of talking with CT because he's the jam aficionado. And I was like, okay, what would the dead version be? And we're doing this kind of light jam. And I was like, I don't like it. And he was like, oh, I think you want maybe more like 68 dead where there's that kind of psychedelic heaviness.

And then from that we started being like, no, no, what we want is an early Sabbath version. And we did this like Sabbath version live and it just felt so good. And you know, that was like a great proof of concept where it's like, there is a dialogue and a role that everybody plays and it's like there is a dialogue and a role that everybody plays and it's very important actually and the records feed the live show and the live show feeds the

records in its own way and so that I think of those rehearsals as a special time where we were kind of entering a new phase and one that turned out to be very positive. That's great and did the touring of the fourth album impact the new album? In a sense it did. I think the fourth album made me realize that the show can have a feeling of its own. And there were times when I thought, I love our kind of crunchy vibe now, maybe we should get even crunchier on the next album. Then I realized, you know what? You can do whatever you want in your show.

Yeah, it's cool to present your new material in a thoughtful way, but also, you can just bust out a cover whenever you want. You can go to the city, you wanna do a country song, do it. And so in some ways, I kind of, I had so much faith in the live show and the group of people that we were doing it with ways I kind of, I had so much faith in the live show and the group of people that we were doing it with that I kind of realized that will have a life of its own

regardless of what this record sounds like. And when I found myself being on the fifth album, being drawn to something gritty or noisy or whatever, I had total faith. I was like, this will fit into the live show because anything could fit into the live show. You know, in some ways my attitude towards show because anything could fit into the live show. In some ways, my attitude towards all five albums has been exactly the same. Whether I've been working with Rostam or Arielle

or both of them, whether Chris and Chris are playing all over it, whether they're not, I've always had my attitude has more or less been the same. But I think going into this album, I think we developed kind of like a closeness on the Five of the Bride tour that just naturally led to us like playing together more. And there's songs on this album, on the fifth album that is, that are very much me and Ariel in a room, but then there's songs that did find their groove in the practice room too. So yeah, maybe it's a bit of like

a full circle thing. How would you describe what's different about the fifth album? As I've been doing press for it and I'm not sure if I've nailed it, I've described as being like our noisiest and our hardest album. I mean there is more distortion and feedback than ever before, but this is the album where I worried the least about singles. Some albums just have, singles are just right. A-Punk is just like a good single. Oxford Comma on the last album.

This Life in Harmony Hall, as much as that album is all over the place, those are just real singles. They sum up the album. This one I just stopped worrying about it quite as much because I felt a little bit like getting too old for that shit to worry about it. And I don't know, I think me and Ariel really came together

wanting to explore, for lack of a better word, like hardness and you know, sometimes soft things are hard. How would you say lyrically it's different than the fourth album? It's narrower, you know, the fourth album being 18 songs. I wanted to have that slightly kooky, we're here, now we're here. Now we're talking about me, now we're talking about this guy.

Whereas this album I felt like has more of a focused intensity. There's a back to New York feeling, at the very least, as like a setting or a home base or something. Also just think, like with every album, the worldview shifts a little bit and it's been interesting. I think it's definitely our most spiritual album, which is, you know, it's a funny word.

It can be triggering to some people. How would you describe that, your spiritual aspects of the album and your relationship to spirituality? To me, the simplest definition of spirituality is the belief that there is more to reality than the physical world, which, when you think about it, is more or less what modern science says, too.

So, you know, the tension between the scientific worldview and the spiritual worldview has always been a little bit silly. And I think when you dive into that and you really explore it, of course, that can be a source of great comfort to people. And, you know, as I've gotten older, I sometimes feel like it's the ultimate source of comfort, arguably the only real source of comfort, then the next phase of the conversation gets tricky. Do you want to call that the universe? Do you want to call it just a sophisticated

psychological operation you perform on yourself? Or do you want to call it God? It's just labels, doesn't matter. It's all labels, right, exactly. And it's funny because there's, back to modern vampires, and at the time, you know, I didn't know why I was drawn to religious imagery, but there's a song called Yahweh, which obviously is a play on Yahweh, which is a name for God.

But when I look at that song, it was obviously coming from a kind of rational, materialist, atheistic place. I've always had respect for differing opinions, but I was definitely coming at it from an outsider. Kind of like, well, obviously I don't believe in that, so if I was to talk to this concept called God, it's more or less saying I don't get it, but there obviously was a spiritual yearning.

And when I look at those lyrics now in rehearsal, I see them, I mean, it seems clear as day on these songs like Everlasting Arms or Yahe. Maybe at that phase of my life, I almost had a disappointment because I felt so disconnected from whatever this thing is that we label sometimes, that I was almost disappointed. This is really all there is. So when I think of this album in terms of spirituality, even if it doesn't wear it on its sleeve, there's a different type of engagement with,

the word I like the best is reality. Sometimes in spiritual literature, it's called the ultimate reality, the supreme reality. But to me, that's the place where religious people and scientific people can come together. We're talking about what is the truth, the actual truth. So I think this album engages with it in a different way and I see, but of course I see the connections

between the albums and how it got here. And it's funny because in some ways with this album, by worrying less about singles, I've tried not to get in the way and think about it less. I mean, you call it different things, but in your book, it stands out to me that you use the phrase source a lot. And this feeling that source

kind of has its own thing to say, and sometimes you can just let it speak. And in a way, one funny aspect of it is that the album title comes from the fact that I saw a cool picture, and then my artistic sensibility said, don't mess up this cool picture by throwing Vampire Weekend on it, don't throw text on it. And the only text on it was a newspaper headline that was only God was above us. And I thought, that'll do, that's a cool phrase. And then again, it's not because I thought I wanted to use those words or because

my artistic sensibility chose those words or even that I didn't, literally didn't even put those words in that order. And then, but it is notable to me. And I only reflected on this when the album was done that I was like, oh, that's interesting to have, you know, it's a big word to have in an album title. And it's one I could not have pictured ever

being a Vampire Weekend album title, including on Modern Vampires. So there's something about that that, I don't know, feels meaningful. L-M-N-T. Element Electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun? You want to maximize your endurance and feel your best? Add Element Electrolytes to your daily routine. Perform better and sleep deeper.

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because I can tell that we play music in our house less than a lot of people. And because I'm a musician and also my wife has like a lot of music in her family, people always say, oh, do you play music around the house all the time does your son like music? And we encourage him to play music.

But we don't actually play a lot ambiently. And I think that's true in the house I grew up in as well, that my parents weren't always just having tunes going. It was kind of a quiet house. But I think the flip side of that is when one of my parents took me aside to play me a piece of music or put a record on, it felt very specific. And I still have very specific memories

of both of my parents saying something about music they liked because it wasn't always there, so we'd focus up, you know? Can you remember any examples from either of them of what they played you and why they liked it? I remember my dad highlighting the fact that Ray Davies from the Kinks was a very good songwriter and I remember him playing me Waterloo Sunset kind of on some like, you want to hear a good song?

This guy's a real songwriter and so that was meaningful to me. And he'd sometimes play old blues songs and I would play classical pieces. Do you think there was an age when it shifted, like was there a time when you were young where that would happen, where your father would play you a piece of music and your response would be, what he's saying is gospel and I'm learning from him.

Yeah. And did there come a time where he would play you something and you're like, no, that's not for me. I never particularly pushed against my parents' taste. It was all... They had good taste. They had good taste. It was like top shelf stuff in the house. Like, you know, if you look in his record collection,

yeah, you'll see cool stuff. You'll see The Clash and Elvis Costello and The Rolling Stones. And you'll see one or two Billy Joel records. I know he respected Billy Joel. And he told me he saw, he came on his radar because Billy Joel opened for Kinky Friedman somewhere in New York, and my dad's a big Kinky Friedman fan.

So I know he respected Billy Joel, but I think a step beyond Billy Joel, like a Neil Diamond, there's no Neil Diamond in the house. So when I get kind of older and be like, wow, Neil Diamond's like really cool songwriter, that would be an example of going, it's almost like I went into the uncool.

Yeah. Well, this is kind of related to something we were talking about before, but as I said, a big inspiration for Father of the Bride was Bruce Springsteen's The River. Yeah. And I kind of, and The River, you know, it has the title track and it has Hungry Heart,

which was a hit, but I was reading some Bruce book. It might've been one of those 33 and a third books, maybe it was about Born in the USA, and this is after making Father of the Bride, and I remember reading, maybe it was about Born in the USA. And this is after making Father the Bride. And I remember reading, they were talking about the albums that led it into Born in the USA, which obviously is his most popular album. And they said something about, well, you know,

the river routinely falls dead last in Springsteen fan polls. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. But the thing I loved about it was that it's classic. It's perfectly imperfect. You can tell he let it be shaggy. He let it have lightness and silliness. And it's kind of like a joke I had with a friend of mine

about how much we actually prefer the white album to Sgt. Pepper's, but Sgt. Pepper's will always be the one that, you know. Wins the poll. Wins the poll. And him and my friend's joke was he just gave us and White Album's unelectable, man. And I was like, right, some albums are unelectable. White Album's my favorite too.

Yeah, it's. Favorite in the catalog. And yet I wouldn't even argue why, yeah, let Sgt. Pepper go take the heat. That one's supposed to be at the top of the polls. And that's also true that born in the USA or Nebraska, they're two ends of the spectrum, but you can see what their constituencies are.

And the river is somewhere else. And of course it's had its moment in the sun, but partially because probably Bruce went out of his way to be like, let's celebrate the Rivers anniversary. But that's one that I find, yeah, I go back to that more than his Electable albums. Do you think if the River was a single album, it would have been better received? It would have been better received, but it would be less important in the discography. And you know, it's fun.

I think even the White Album, I read some contemporary bad reviews. I mean, it's the White Album, so of course. Yeah, right. Yeah, and you can see how, you know, the easiest criticism is like, piggies, like, what are we doing here? Yeah.

Have Vampire Weekend ever done an acoustic set, meaning an acoustic-only show anywhere? Mm-hmm We've done so many sessions and small shows usually put on by like a radio station or something It's funny you say that because I've been trying to be more thoughtful when we do these sessions Rather than just you know play some like punky song and acoustic guitar and be kind of unsatisfied with it. Really think, well, which of our material might fit and how can we arrange it? And I've had this idea that one day I'd like to do some kind of special tour.

I don't know if it's more sit-down theaters or unique venues. That's kind of like our unplugged quiet thing. And I have a good name for it, the Quiet Dignity Tour. That's nice. I look forward to that. I have a feeling it's gonna be The Quiet Dignity Tour. That's nice. I look forward to that. I have a feeling it's gonna be good. Yeah, you hear the songs differently.

Yeah, it changes your relationship to the songs. Yeah. Tell me about the period of finishing the fourth album cycle, thinking about the fifth album, what did you decide in advance, what happened in the studio that was not what you decided in advance? That was an interesting time. You know, the pandemic cut the touring short a bit, so you

know, suddenly I had a lot of time to think about the next album. And I think already, you know, the pendulum is always swinging, at least internally within the band. After making our kind of double album with the light next to the heavy and stuff, I kind of felt like, all right, this one needs to be tight, have a sense of focus, maybe a more specific sense of place. And I found myself kind of reflecting on old New York vibes and not living there anymore. I mean, I still spend plenty of time there, but it's not the main place I live. And yeah, what does that period of history represent to me, you know, 20th century New

York? So I found my mind going there. It's funny, after talking about doing all this press, I can't always keep it straight. One thing I've been saying in some of the press, and this is true, is that on Father of the Bride, Ariel, who's slightly older than me, he's five years older than me, so he can like, he just remembers the 90s

in a different way. And also, he's born and raised in LA, and he kind of came of age in the punk world. And I remember thinking on Father the Bride, I was really throwing a very specific type of East Coast reference at him, which, you know, like the jam bands and all this other kind of stuff. And you know, he's, he can kind of wrap his head around anything. But I remember thinking on this album as we talked about about it and we talked about

trying to attempt a new type of hardness or heaviness, I could also feel like a way that we could become more like in sync or something. Our shared references of punk rock, hip hop, 90s stuff, I kind of felt like, all right, after doing this big crazy album together, it was almost like I was more interested in finding common ground. Do you feel like the album is nostalgic? Yes.

Well, yeah, it's a dangerous word because... For you. I don't mean stylistically, but I mean your experience of it, do you feel like it's about a different time in your life? Are you looking back on a different time in your life? Yeah, but not just in my life. Almost in these kind of like half-glimpsed memories of like the world that I saw a tiny bit as a kid

or that I imagined from tiny bit as a kid or that I imagined from my parents or even my grandparents era. This is maybe only tangentially related, but the album cover, which I found just cruising the internet, was taken by this guy, Steven Siegel, who was an amateur, but no less of an artist, photographer in his 20s. That didn't become his main profession.

And then we looked through all his other pictures, and there are all these very surreal pictures of these overturned subway cars. So we get a dialogue going with him about how we'd like to use some of these images. And then at some point, as we're getting closer to the album coming out, he said, you know, I also have quite a bit of video footage from that same era, which was pretty amazing because some of video footage from that same era, which was pretty amazing because some of the footage was taken at the same time. So after looking at this image of this overturned subway car for years, I see a video of a guy dropping sideways, you know, like inception style into the subway car.

And I was like, well, and as we look through all that, and as someone who's recently spent a lot of time looking through archival footage, you realize that it's pretty easy to find every year in any major city some tourist who set up in the town square and panned around and said, oh, look at, here's the Trafalgar Square, you know, or here's like a famous piazza. That's easy to find. Finding somebody who had an artistic eye filming like the weird perimeter of a city or these strange moments in an era, that's harder to find. So we were incredibly blessed that Steven Segal had all this footage.

And I remember as I was editing the Capricorn video with the director and the editor and our whole creative team, and we were looking at these images, we all were struck by this feeling, they were like, this doesn't just look old, it looks like another planet, it looks like an alternate reality, which is not always how you feel looking at archival stuff. There was, yeah, the nostalgia, which when I think about what does that word mean,

a kind of semi painful but pleasant feeling about something that you miss or something, but there's also this feeling where not only were you not there, it doesn't just feel like something that happened, it feels like something that exists on another plane of reality or something. And that's when all this stuff with time gets interesting

and the past starts to look more like the future and all those kind of weird things. But these are all thoughts that have come about working on the album and looking at the images. When you think back to your time in New York, do you look back fondly on it? Yeah, sure. I do. I mean, I think, you know, it was like definitely the place I came of age. But also, I'm sure you can relate to this a little bit, like, you know, it was like definitely the place I came of age but also I'm sure you can relate to this a little bit like, you know growing up just outside the city People who grew up in in the in the city that can be a real source of pride for them. So you never want to Even if you were born there even if your family's from there if you didn't spend your age 5 to 18 there you have to You know, I'm from Manhattan,

you're from Secaucus, you know, kind of like. So, but the way I've always seen it is, I've always just thought of the New York region, the tri-state area, which is about 30 million people, I've always just thought of it as like the country that my family comes from and the place that I understand the best and the place that I have true family history the place that I've true family

history. And every branch of my family began their American journey in New York City, you know, there's not a single exception. Even one grandma was born in Romania, but she moved to the East Village when she was a little girl. So both my parents were born there, I was born there, and so even the the New Jersey thing and the having cousins in Westchester, knowing people from Long Island and Connecticut, to me that's just the, it's the lens through which I understand everything. The same way if you were like Belgian, which is smaller than the tri-state area, If you were Belgian, you would understand generations of families through the Belgian lens,

and you'd understand the link between the city and the country through the Belgian lens. And, you know, for me, that's the tri-state area. So there's my time in the city as, like, a resident. But more importantly, there's just this... It's the place, it's the culture, you know? So much of today's life happens on the web.

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I'm just pointing it out because when you said it's like, oh yeah, I wanna hear the rest of that song. Right. I've actually been working on one song that was almost on the album, and it's called New York Hospital. And I think it was partially just because I realized somehow very deep into our friendship,

it came about that, oh, me and Bayo were born at the same hospital, which at the time has the most bland name of all time. Maybe you remember it was called New York Hospital. Now I think it's part of the Cornell, whatever, it's one of these Upper East Side hospitals, but there's something I love,

just like that's the name of the hospital, New York Hospital, and I was like, oh, that's kind of cool that we were born in the same place, you know, the same year, and then naturally at this phase of life, you think when it's no longer all about you the way it is when you're young and you think about, oh, I'm in between. I think about the older generations and where they were born and how they grew up and I think about the younger generations.

Can you play me a little bit of New York Hospital on the guitar? Yeah, I could try. Yeah, right. So on acoustic guitar it'll sound kind of folky, which maybe we've experimented And I wanted to say, that the unions invented the weekends So thanks for your lives, and thanks for the days When the village voice in the New York Times still smoldered in the flames I was born in the New York hospital in the middle of a golden age If you think you're born in hell, my son, in the desert's gilded cage We were both born deep in an endless war in the middle of a golden, middle of a golden age

And there's a good riff that comes in. Yeah, so it's funny, we have some demos that are cool of that. I've got to figure out if that belongs on the next album or something in between. Have you ever played the ponies in your life? Yeah. Really? You know, in some, I mean, of course, I primarily just like that as an old-fashioned phrase, like some guys and dolls playing the ponies.

But yeah, I've always had, you know, kind of degenerate friends who say, you want to go to the track? And I'm like, what do I even do here? And they show me how to do it. And so you've been to the track? Yeah. I was at Santa Anita pretty recently actually. A buddy of mine, and he has a kid the same age as mine, he said, you wanna bring him? And I was like, okay. And we went and it was pretty, I hadn't been in a while,

but it was kind of far out. And I was leaving with my little son getting to the car and the valets looked at me and with a smile holding my son's hand said, oh, that's good, start them early. It's like, wow. What was the scene there like? Tell me about the scene at Sant'Anita.

It's interesting because there's a restaurant that kind of feels like a country club. So you get a little bit of like a high class thing. Well, first of all, San Anita is a beautiful old building, probably from the teens or the 20s. And so there's, you get all walks of life in there. And there's part of it that feels like you're in port authority.

So you're in port authority and you see people who are kind of like, you start thinking about what's your deal, man? Like you look like pushing 80 by yourself, holding like a plastic bag and you're like, where do you live? Do you have fans? You know, those kind of things. Like what's your story?

And then you go to this restaurant and you see people who have a kind of high class thing going on and they're ordering ice cream sundaes and steak and stuff. So it's one of these classic places where you see, yeah, I guess horse racing really brings together different types of people. It's high class and low class at the same time. And does it match your memory of ever going when you were young? Does it like, is that an unchanged thing? Well, I didn't really go when I was young.

I mean, definitely, my parents weren't taking me. Maybe more when I was a teenager and some friend of mine would be like, you wanna check this out? So, yeah, I've been. I don't have a deep connection to it. I was sure you hadn't gone. So the fact that you've ever gone is really impressive. But, you know, it's funny.

So I have gone technically, but to say it's like a big part of my life. No, but it's still, it's like you're referencing something that you actually have experienced. It's not pure fiction. Yeah. And I've, you know, I've been lucky in life that I've known a lot of different type of people with all sorts of different backgrounds and interests and stuff and I've always been curious about what other people like.

So yeah, I feel like I've had a lot of cool experiences in life just being taken into somebody else's world. Was anyone in your family ever in a union? Yeah, my dad. Amazing. I also would have guessed no. No, in fact, with that I thought about, you know, I'm still working on the song,

but there's a lot of kind of generational stuff because I'm thinking about my father in the song, but also talking to my son a little bit because I had this feeling where I thought, well, you know, I was born in April in Manhattan, which is a lot of people I think would agree is one of the most beautiful times and places in the world. Depends what part of Manhattan, but we can all agree.

Springtime in New York. Yeah. And whereas my son was born in August in LA. So, you know, hopefully the song goes deeper. I just think, if you think you're born in hell, my son was born in August in LA. So, you know, hopefully the song goes deeper, but I just think, if you think you're born in hell, my son, like August in LA sounds like hell, you know. But yeah, so I was thinking about the generations of my dad.

So, yeah, even though it was like a funny, a little play on words to me that the, I said, I must've played the ponies and back to the grind, and I wanted to say that the unions invented the weekend. Because people say the unions, there used to be a bumper sticker, like, enjoy, you enjoyed the weekend, thank a labor union. So there's also something about like, well, in one sense the union's been a vampire weekend

because my dad was in a union and so were his parents too. They were teachers. My dad, he was in IATSE, which certainly includes everybody who builds sets in New York for, or I guess in the whole country for TV and Broadway too, I think. Yeah, so yeah, there's a lot of that. I always like stuff where it seems a little bit out there, but then there's some sort of real connection to it. If we went through your catalog and we talked about,

we just talked about the first two lyrics of a song that is not finished or released. And there's a great deal of personal depth already in those two lyrics. If we went through the catalog, is that, would you say it's the nature of your writing? Are you very connected to the material in that way? Yeah, I mean... That's fascinating. I think so.

One thing's for sure, there's never been a Vampire Weekend lyric... Well, there haven't been many Vampire Weekend lyrics that are purely random. You know, there's definitely a style of music, especially indie music, where it kind of seems like it doesn't mean much or it's purposefully random. People said that about Bob Dylan, they say about Pavement or something, guided by voices, but the reason that all those artists have a deep, passionate fan base is because it's not actually random.

And even when you don't get it, you feel it or something. But I think there's a lot of Vampire Weekend lyrics that they aren't even that this abstract thing that you feel but it might not make sense but it's still meaningful. Sometimes it's just literally meaningful. Like a couple people had asked me about a line on the new record, talks about the sand hogs in the street, the chickens in her bedroom. And you know, in New York, the people who work under the ground are called sandhogs who build the tunnels and they go all the way back to building the Brooklyn Bridge.

But now they're working on the water tunnels, the subway tunnels. I was always very interested in them. My dad had been some kind of tunnel inspector at some point in life before he started working on movies. And then chickens in her, I knew somebody had chickens in her bedroom. That's more common than you think. People having animals in New York apartments for various reasons. But that one I actually saw with my own eyes.

Do you remember there was a tiger in an apartment in Harlem? Yeah, it was really... The pictures were amazing of the city coming in to try to take a full-grown tiger out of an apartment. Yeah. How do you decide what does and doesn't make it on an album? Usually it's not that hard

because it's never whittling down dozens of songs. Although I do want to try that one day. I just don't know if I'll ever have dozens of songs, but it is, they say with Thriller, they were like, we went through 200 songs. But they probably had some of the best songwriters in the world submitting songs and listening, and be like, could we work with it?

So the idea of whittling down 200 songs to like the 10 to 12, I mean, that's an, I love that concept, but there's usually not that many to begin with that are fully formed songs with the lyrics and production ideas and arrangement ideas. And in the case of this album, which almost could have been 11, I think because every version we worked on, it felt kind of strummy with an acoustic guitar. We just kind of felt like, you know what, we have enough acoustic strumminess on this

album. This doesn't quite feel like it fits. Some of the imagery in the song is very connected to other songs, maybe almost too connected. So, you know, I guess that was a pretty typical like does it fit kind of conversation. But you also said you had the beginnings of Step long before that album.

So it's not unusual for you to have good pieces that just for whatever reason, the time's not right. Exactly, yeah, or Hannah Hunt, we tried in the Contra era, it just didn't totally make sense. Yeah, and sometimes it's just a gut feeling. Do they change, like Hannah Hunt from the Contra era, would it have been different had you recorded it then?

Oh yeah, totally. And that was one of those ones that as we played it as a band, my heart just kind of sank because I was like, what? I like this song. And then I realized that song wasn't made to sound live per se. And then at some point, I remember one of my little references for how that song could sound and said,

what if the XX made a country song? And that was like a guiding principle. And if the XX did make a country song, it wouldn't be four people in a room playing drums, electric, you know, it'd be beat oriented. Let's listen to a little Hannah Hunt. Sure. Is there a Hannah Hunt?

There's somebody named Hannah Hunt, who, she was just someone we all knew in college and very cool person, but the song is not about anything about her per se. This truly was inspired by how good her name was. And even in some ways, the fact that she pronounced it differently helps have that separation where it's almost like inspired, but it is a different name.

Let's hear it a little bit. A gardener told me some plants move, saw crawling vines and weeping willows As we made our way from Providence to Phoenix A man of faith said, hidden eyes could see what I was thinking I just smiled and told him that was only true of Hannah And we glided on through Waverly and Lincoln Our days were long, our nights no longer Count the seconds, watching the hours Though we live on the US dollar

You and me, we got our own sense of time In Santa Barbara, and I cry to missed those freezing beaches I walked into town to buy some kind and fold the file And I told the New York Times I've been to P.C. Dark times have been to pieces If I can't trust you then damn it Hannah There's no future, there's no answer Though we live on the US dollar You and me, we got our own sense of time If I get just you and I'm in Hanna There's no future, there's no answer Don't remember how we used to dive

You and me, we got our own sense of time At what point in the process did you decide to sing the last chorus up? That was when we started working on it. From the beginning? No, no, no, no, no. I threw out my kind of XX country idea, but then Rostam was like, it should get big. So he said, can you sing it up an octave? And this is why it's so great to have different points of views.

Cause I remember saying, no, it's too high. And he was very encouraging, just push it, push it. You can do it. And then I realized, right. So I had my idea for it to be small and austere, but actually that's what turns the song into a journey, is to jump up, because I remember, I don't know if I can do it, and he said, do it.

We did it, that part gets big, then it gets small again, and it was obviously a brilliant call on his part because it's- It's really surprising, it really works. And it's funny too how like, probably because I reacted so negatively to trying to play the song live, because of course you would never get that level of minimalism, I don't care who it is.

If you get four people in a room, you're not gonna get that level of minimalism. So I was so attached to my minimalist idea that even at first I was like, I don't want it to get big. My whole thing is I don't want it to be big. Now looking back I can see the 2020 vision, why that was such a great call, because it makes you appreciate the smallness

on either side more, and it's an emotionally cathartic moment, and it's exactly the type of thing that sometimes as a songwriter, you might not wanna do, because the song is very emotional, but it's understated. And for me to sing that high, let's say beyond the top is very emotional, but it's understated.

And for me to sing that high at, let's say beyond the top of my range, that's letting the understated emotion go away and getting actually emotional. And, you know, there's probably the part of me that wanted to be a bit cooler or closer to the vest, but that's what sells the, it's like that emotion after this kind of quiet road trip story, you know.

Big feeling. What's also interesting about it is it gets loud first in the instrumental section, and while it seems loud, the instrumental section, it's not really that big or loud. It's only big and loud in comparison to what came before it. So it seems bombastic, but if the song started that way, you wouldn't even think that it's big.

It was ordinary. But then when the vocal comes in high, then it's like, oh, this is like, it really has gone somewhere. Right, yeah, totally. When I first started writing the song, there's somewhere there's a must-be recording because I remember still being in college

just before Vampire Weekend started. I'm sure when I wrote it, it was like, a gardener told me some plants move. I probably was more like a country song or If I can trust you to lend me a hand. And I knew, I didn't find that particularly exciting, especially when I look back to what seemed cool to me in the early days of Vampire Weekend, but I knew that I liked the song, I liked the lyrics, so that's why it necessitated multiple attempts.

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Visit houseofmacadamias.com slash tetra. Does it happen that for a period of time you don't like something or you don't like a style and then years later you come back around to it and realize, oh, I really do like this or you changed? It stayed the same, obviously. Right. Yeah. Do you come back around to it and realize, oh, I really do like this, or you changed, it stayed the same, obviously. Right, yeah. Do you come around to things? Oh, totally. Sometimes I think I need years to accurately judge something that we work on, and also

context is everything. I mean, if what we do is make so many decisions based on what we think feels appropriate or cool or whatever, and that is totally a game you play with culture and time. And whether you want to be in step with the times or out of step or just in step with yourself, yeah, it still is all about time and timing. So I revisit old demos all the time and, you know, change a lyric, change an arrangement and suddenly it feels relevant again. But one thing's for sure, I just feel like that whatever this game that we're playing is it's never been as simple as is it good or not.

I have some memory of a friend of ours overhearing some conversation in the studio, this was years ago, also an artist in his own right, but he was hearing me go on about why I thought a certain kind of drum sound felt uncool to me or played out. And I was talking in terms of like a 90s rock drum sound versus like an 80s pop,

I had something like that. And the guy said something, I think he was trying to be encouraging, but he said something along the lines of like, you're worrying so much about drum sounds and eras and stuff, just like, you know, speak from your heart and like, don't worry about that stuff, if it's good, it's good.

And I just remember thinking, I saw where he was coming from. And I just remember thinking, I saw where he was coming from, but I just remember thinking, no, that's not true. That's just not the game that we're playing. There's other rules too. And if the day comes, we want to make an unadorned acoustic album,

even that will be a choice, right? Like that's... And I'm sure you'll spend years thinking about it. Right, and there's so many types of unadorned acoustic albums. I want to make it on a four-track, I want to make it digital, you know? What would be... Is there one song that you think is representative of the new album? On the new album...

Let me pull it up. As we get to this album, it becomes more difficult just because, you know, this is the newest, had very recently put so much thought into how it all fits together. It gets harder to zero in on one song. I mean, there's different modes at work in this album. I think maybe a good one is classical because it's a, I always just call everything fast, punky.

You know, that's just the shorthand we have in the band. So to me, it's in the punkier vein of Vampire Weekend. But it starts with an acoustic guitar doing this. ["Vampire Weekend"] And then the drums come in and they're big and they have their own weird swing but they're kind of reminiscent of hip-hop but then the thing that really sells it, which was Ariel's call is this big upright bass. And so for me when I think of this song, and I mean Ariel talked about it too, you know,

just for, we're not the exact same age, but relatively older, millennial, younger Gen X who grew up where, you know, the most important new music to us was punk slash alternative rock and hip hop. The idea of making a high energy song you could call punky that had the weight of an upright bass like we loved in a tribe called Quest or some Beastie Boys or a lot of hip hop. The idea of fusing that, which is harder than it seems, was kind of like a lifelong mission.

And I don't know, not everybody has to see it that way. Because as much as punk and hip hop have always been in dialogue since the early days, you know, it can be really corny just to do punk vocals over a hip-hop beat. But even for us, growing up in the shadow of all the amazing work and the fusions of what you've done and that we grew up with, it still is a lifelong ambition to make something that has that jazzy weightiness of hip-hop with the drums and the bass, which is always interesting because sometimes even the hardest beat,

it's not as hard as you thought it was, and you realize, oh, you're sampling these old funk drummers who are playing really light, all that stuff, but to have that energy. So to me, because this album has both this alternative rock, punky side and this like hip hop side. This is maybe the song where it gets married the most. Let's listen to it.

Yeah. ["Sweet Home Alone"] In times of war the educated class knew what to do In times of peace their pupils couldn't meet your big blues 400 million animals competing for the zoo It's such a bleak sunrise All true, all kind and all natural And unnatural How the crew with time becomes classical I know that walls fall, shack shake Fist burn and brake is clear

Something's gonna change And when it does Which classical remains? The tempo's gone but still a single column stands today That sickening feeling fades but never really goes away A staircase up to nothingness inside your DNA With acid blue sunrise With that sublime sunrise All true, all kind and all natural How the crew with time becomes classical I know that wildfire shack shape

Whisper and fast-breakers clear Something's gonna change And when it does Which class it could remain Ah! Oh, true, oh, kind, and unnatural How the crew with time becomes classical I know that once the shack's shaked, the fish's burned and the boat's break is clear Something's gonna change, and when it does, which classical remains Guess which class you could remain It's a really beautiful song. Thanks. That's a bleak sunrise, untrue, unkind and unnatural. Really beautiful words. Oh, thanks. And there's something too that I liked about how it turned out because it is...

it feels... new, the combination of elements, it feels like new and yet there's something very traditional about the songwriting. Not every song needs it, but when you have a song that has a true pre-chorus, I just always feel more sophisticated, you know? And the pre-chorus really does sound like a chorus in this song, so when the fast-talking part of the chorus comes, I find it surprising,

like a chorus tops it, it's a really good feeling. That's what I, well, I appreciate you saying that cuz that's what I love in songs, you know, I was just listening to Somehow this came up randomly, but I hadn't thought about in a long time was just video killed the radio star Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty simplistic way to talk about music, but it's kind of like is Every part good and you realize that song has so many parts. I heard you on the wireless back in 52. Oh, oh, oh. And then the chorus video killed the radio star.

But by the time it gets to the new melody, I guess you could call it the bridge. You are the radio star. Just like, how many do you have? Yeah. It's like over, it's like every part, you have a great new idea and they're all Equally good. I love when a song can do that

Should we listen to Capricorn or so? Sure The world looked different when God was on your side Who bears the future? Does that care? Why? I know you're tired of trying Listen clearly, you don't have to try Capricorn, the year that you were born Finished first and the next one was yours

Too old, too young to live alone Why is it called Capricorn? As I recall, I had some... I was just thinking about people who are born right at the end of the year. And I was like, oh, that's kind of a good metaphor for what a larger thing I was thinking about. about people who are born right at the end of the year. And I was like, oh, that's kind of a good metaphor for what a larger thing I was thinking about, just that feeling of being a little bit in between the Tony Soprano thing of I didn't get in on the ground floor, I was born too late.

And so I was thinking, well, what if you were born in the final days of the year? So this year that you'll always be associated with, you'll be filling in forms for the rest of your life, and yet you didn't really have a taste of it. What I said, the year that you were born finished fast, the next one wasn't yours. So then I was like, I don't know enough about astrology to know it off the top of my head, so I said, well, yeah, what would you be if you were born like December 30th?

And I saw Capricorn, so then, I mean, how lucky was I that Capricorn rhymes with born if it had been something else? Worked out. Yeah, it worked out. Worked out. So you had the song first. How far into the process did this song come? This was very early.

And if I played you the first demo of Capricorn, it wouldn't sound all that different. It would have all the main elements. So I remember Ariel and I working on that early, early in the process. I remember kind of going to him having, there's like a piano motif that existed on its own, that kind of just worked as a post-chorus.

I think actually I came in with the chorus maybe. And then we had to work backwards to come up with a verse. And I'm on and wounded. So we kind of worked on that. And I remember over two days, we had more or less sketched out the whole song, which for us is very fast. Doesn't mean we were done, but he mocked up those drums

and the drums plus the acoustic plus the piano, like, oh this works. And then I remember being at home that night and I was like, I wonder if this song could have a part that sounded like My Bloody Valentine. And so I came back the next day and he said, what if on the second chorus it went to like My Bloody Valentine? He's like, okay. And then he busted out the whammy pedal and then it gets big. So that's how that came about. Typically, do you bring in a song to work on

before all the lyrics are done? Is that a normal thing or not really? Yeah, all the time. I feel like if, once the chorus is more or less set, it counts. Yeah. If you have a chorus, you're allowed to then spend four years thinking about just the right third verse. But if you come in with a verse

and you don't really have a chorus, you're not really ready to work on it. That's been my experience. I think the final track, Hope, is pretty important. It just definitely feels like new territory lyrically. It's only five verses, but still for us, that's a lot of verses, you know? And that song is interesting because I think there's always

been some kind of folk music underpinning to like what we do, but this one is, we didn't arrange it exactly like a folk song, but. I think it kind of summarizes the album, a little bit of the worldview and the spiritual worldview of the album. And then just also in terms of the history of the band, it's just the closest we've come to just like a folk song, because it has this chorus that comes over no being I hope you let it go. I hope you let it go Enemies invincible, I hope you let it go

And then you know a bunch of verses, you know, we took it to a different place we wrote a instrumental bridge But it's um What's it about? Well, it's funny. With so many of these songs, this is how I always feel. It's like at first, it just kind of pops into my head and I think that'll do. That sounds good. Sounds like a song. And then as I work on it, I think about it.

So it almost never happens the opposite way where I'm like, I have a strong feeling that I want to put into words and then I do it. No, I have some words I want to put in a song and then I think about the feeling and then either it resonates with me and I keep it or it doesn't. I think, well, you know, we were talking before about the, how, you know, I still feel very connected to modern vampires, but sometimes I look at some of the seriousness or the agita of that record as being the agita of youth.

You know, I think of this as like the agita of being older. And I guess the simplest way to put it is that, you know, your whole life, you have people telling you this incredibly simple thing, which is more or less the serenity prayer of AA, which I've never been a part of, but I know people have been a part of it. And even just being on the periphery of it,

I've found it very deep and inspiring, and accept the things you cannot change. And you have people tell you that your whole life, and it's so logical, it's so rational, it makes sense, or even when people say, well, you can't change other people, but you can change yourself. And you're like, yeah, right,

but I think I should probably change some other people, you know, in the meantime. And even, you know, you think about, it can be borderline infuriating when you're young, or even well into adulthood, it can be infuriating when you're young, or even well into adulthood, it can be infuriating when somebody tells you, I understand that situation is causing you stress and anxiety and pain, but I encourage you to let it go.

That can make you angry. It's like, God, shut the fuck up, you're not in my shoes. And then as you get older, you start to realize some of the people give you that advice, they have been in your shoes. They've been actually in, I don't know what the right metaphor is, bigger shoes, heavier shoes than you have. And you start to realize, right, it's such a misguided judgment to say that optimists

or easygoing people are living in the virtue untested category. Because I've come to realize actually some of the chillest people I know or the most optimistic, or another way to say it, the people who have the best relationship with life itself, people who can really love life or, you know, another phrase, amor fati, love their fate. Sometimes those are people who have actually been through more than many people could even imagine, you know, the difficult situations, suffering, things like that. I guess if I had to summarize that song, it's about these, that hard-won feeling of getting

older and realizing that the answer that's presented to you often in life that seems so annoying, borderline infuriating, let it go. And you're like, but what about this situation? Let it go. What about that situation? Let it go. What about that situation? Let it go. That that's not a cloying childish sentiment or the sentiment of a delusional optimist, that there's actually deep wisdom in it. Whether or not I fully embraced or embodied in it, it in my life, it's something that

at least I now understand as an ideal to aspire to. And that's not even something I understood when I was younger. Are the verses examples? Yeah, I'm kind of just trying to hit it from so many different sides. And the song opens with that goes like, the bullets go the matter though,

the US army lost the war. And this is one of these little things I fixed it on for a while. And then I realized I don't want it to be so simplistic that it's like, oh, you lost? Just let it go. And again, look, the US Army, I don't want it to be so simplistic that it's like, oh, you lost? Just let it go. And again, look, the U.S. Army, some people root for it, some people don't. You could look at it different ways. But I like the idea of having both the matador

getting gored by the bull. Like, that's objectively an L for the matador. But also, like, the idea of an army winning. That's something you have to let go of, too. Whether you're the victim or the winner, you know, all of it has to be... Because essentially, you know, what is it? It's the ephemeral nature of all phenomena.

So, yeah, that's essentially what the song is. And I really had to put thought into it and kick the tires on it over the years to make sure. I just don't want it to be some simplistic thing where everything that's listed is obviously bad. And I really like that some of my favorite verses are ones that could be good or bad depending who you are. Like there's one part that's a... The embassy is abandoned now, the flag that flew is on the ground, the painting burned, the statue drowned, I hope you let it go. And I was thinking about the idea of an overrun embassy,

you know, it's something we see over and over again and we'll continue to see forever. It can be the end of a moment, the revolution. It can be something somewhat peaceful. It can be something incredibly violent. It can be a huge win for a person, a group of people. It can be a huge loss for another group of people. What may fall within the sphere of Tetragrammaton? Counterculture? Tetragrammaton. Sacred geometry?

Tetragrammaton. The avant-garde? Tetragrammaton. Generative art? Tetragrammaton. The tarot? Tetragrammaton. Out of print music?

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And magic. Tetragrammaton. Obscure film. Tetragrammaton. Beach culture. Tetragrammaton. Esoteric lectures. Tetragrammaton.

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Tetragrammaton. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Tetragrammatin. The canon of fine objects. Tetragrammatin. Muscle cars. Tetragrammatin. Ancient wisdom for a new age. Upon entering, experience the artwork of the day. Take a breath and see where you are drawn. Do you ever have insights into old songs of yours lyrically over time? Yeah, definitely. When I look back to Modern Vampires in particular and I think about a song like Yahweh, I think when I wrote it,

it probably came from the point of view, which is kind of just the cultural milieu that I lived in, which is like, obviously God is not real. Like, not even a question. You know, and depending where you grew up or how you were raised or what kind of faith you have, that could be a legitimate question. But I think I, you know.

He was just accepted. He was just accepted. Like, even when I picture like deep stoner conversations I may have had with friends, there was never one where somebody said, hey, you think God is real? It, like, again. It never came up.

It never came up because that wasn't part of it. So I think when I think about that song at the time, which is kind of addressing the, just the concept of God, I think it's coming from a place like, obviously I'm talking to myself here because how could it be that a being through the... Where does that song go? What key is it?

Through the fire and through the flames, yeah, yeah. Through the fire and through the flames, you won't even say your name. Only, only I am that I am But who could ever live that way? Sorry, who could ever live that way? Who could ever live that way? Through the fire, through the flames You won't even say your name only I am that I am but who could ever live that way So that idea of kind of like yeah coming from this place it doesn't make any sense that you would say I am that I am which is the tetragrammaton, right? The Y-H-W-H. So I think from that point of view

when I think about it at the time, and I probably wondered, yeah, what was the point of that song? Did I just think it was kind of like cool to delve into something more serious? And so at the time I thought of it as, it doesn't make any sense. Nobody could live that way.

Just I am that I am. It doesn't make sense. But now I look back on it and I think, well, if it didn't make sense, why did I care? You know what I mean? There's a lot of things that don't make that much sense and you just can let it go. But there was clearly something that was kind of drawing me in about it.

And I look back on it now and I think a human being saying having trying to have a conversation with something with the infinite and saying how can it be that with all these this change and these things you know that you're just out there saying I am that I am how can you live that way and now I realize well the the person asking that question is not like the sophisticated lawyer who is putting God in its place. That person is confused and angry and looking for something deeper. So when I think about that song now,

I just see it differently. Do you think it spoke to you because, I'm making this up. You were evolving your position and you were still on the old side of the position. And it's almost like you were arguing with some part of yourself. And you're still arguing for the old position. But now, you know, over time you look back and you see, I've actually moved

to the other side of this. Right, yeah, that makes sense because I guess if a song is about an argument, then at different times in your life, you could fall on either side of it. Yeah, and maybe the reason it was meaningful to you is because the part of you that was going to be let go of wanted to state its position, like it was stating its case. R. Right. Yeah. No, it's funny because I feel like that happens so often where, yeah, especially when you're

going through some sort of internal change. I think all human beings are like that. Sometimes you're having an argument or you're explaining your position on something, and even as you're saying it, you're saying it because you know it's wrong or because you're ready to let it go or you're making the argument one more time for old times' sake. And it's funny, I think about talking about that,

this in particular makes me think about, I felt very connected over the last however many years to this old English hymn, Abide With Me. Do you know it? It kind of came on my radar because Thelonious Monk did a cover of it in the 60s. So again, I wasn't out there looking for religious music or hymns, you know,

like all urban sophisticated. I listened to cool 60s jazz sometimes. So I heard this like, oh, Thelonious Monk doing Abide With Me, and I was like, what is this? It's a very pretty melody. And then I went and listened to the actual lyrics of the, I guess it's a 19th century hymn. I won't be able to play it on guitar because I've never really sung it, but there's the line that's always stuck out to me is, change and decay in all I see. Thou who changest not, abide with me. And it's interesting because rather than the idea of the world surrounded by bad things, change and decay.

Rather than saying, well, therefore, I feel totally disconnected from this world, and if there is a creator or a force, an organizing principle behind all of this, then I don't like it. Rather than saying, and I just proved how absurd existence is because I'm surrounded by change and decay, this is the opposite. It's saying, because the nature of physical reality is change and decay, which is true,

thou who changest not the infinite, the eternal, rather than judging you, I'm asking for help. Abide with me." And, you know, in a way I look at it now and I'm like, oh, that's like some of the same concept, it's just a different attitude to bring to it. Yeah, the one I listen to a lot is Thelonious Monk, which is instrumental, but it just gives you a sense of the pretty melody. Oh So then below is the King's College, Cambridge. The white with me frost falls, the even kind. The darkness deepens, not with me alive, when all the headless may act come for sleep. O come, all ye faithful,

O come, all ye faithful, O come, all ye faithful, O come, all ye faithful, O come, all ye faithful, abide with me and then change and decay and all that I see, you know, any piece of art, song, whatever, you know, and people say this all the time, that everybody always thought the world was ending. That's like something people say. And there's something nice about imagining because there's so much energy goes into making us feel like

we're living through a unique time of change and decay. And then to imagine whenever this was written, well before our era, well before our parents' or our grandparents' era, that somebody was, you know, sitting down and saying, change and decay, in all that I see, thou who changest not abide with me. There is some comfort in that, that change and decay in all that I see, thou who changest not abide with me. There is some comfort in that, that change and decay is the nature of reality and that fighting it.

It's the nature of the material world. Yeah, right, yes. Exactly, and to know that that's something that, as long as there's been humans, people have been wrestling with, and that there's nothing new that we're dealing with. And frankly, there's no new insight either. People have clocked exactly what you just said about the nature of the material world

and examined it and thought about it and transcended it without the aid of whatever technology or the internet and stuff. And there's something very powerful and feeling connected to that relationship between the dialogue, between the temporal and the eternal, between the human and what some people might call the divine. So yeah, I think it's the last few years this hymn has just been something that I felt like I wanted to listen to a lot.

And there's a lot of powerful lyrics in it. Tell me about the experience of singing live. What is happening in your head when you're singing live? Are you thinking about the lyrics? Are you thinking about singing? Are you looking at what's happening around you? Where is your mind on stage in the song?

The honest answer is that it's all over the place and that there are times, the difference as I've gotten older is I see the importance of bringing it back. Sometimes when I was younger, I'd say like, just get through the show, you know, whatever it takes. Get through the show, get through the tour. Whereas now I think, just like I try to remember about any activity, now I'm here, let me not just get through it, let me exist in it.

And this is a particularly, a concert's a particularly good one to, you know, that's worth doing when you're waiting in line at the grocery store. It's especially worth doing when you're waiting in line at the grocery store. It's especially worth doing when you're singing songs that are connected to your life and your history and your relationships and stuff. So yeah, my mind wanders, I try to bring it back.

Of course, there's little anxieties about, do I remember how to play the guitar riff that's coming up and things like that? But of course, the best experiences are when I'm engaging in the song. And if I can have that moment where I feel like I'm performing it well and I feel connected to the moment and the feeling of all these people coming together

on stage and in the audience, and I feel like my mind is going through the meaning of the words, whether or not I wrote it. Like we were covering Joker Man, the Dylan song, quite a bit, and you know, that's a lot of verses. It's a mysterious song. And eventually I came to just love being on stage and just performing that song and like kind of thinking about it at the same time.

Tell me about the difference between performing a song you wrote versus doing a cover. With enough time, there's no difference. That's what's interesting. Like, do you feel more freedom with a cover or no? Not necessarily. You know, but and because we've always taken these like long periods of time away from touring, you know, and between albums, sometimes when we get back in the rehearsal room and looking at these songs, I am looking at them with fresh eyes and sometimes not that differently than

as if it's a cover. That's not to say that I know that could make it sound like, oh, I feel disconnected from just covering my own material. No, it's just like that same level of... You're not the same person who wrote those songs. Right. We evolve, we change, our lives change. Yeah. Everything changes. Yeah, it just means something new to me, so...

I think in some ways, that's a good thing. Like, if you're re-engaging with an old song as if you didn't write it, in some way Maybe gives it more life. Yeah, totally It because it sometimes it makes me more Yet more curious about the song where I think what did I mean by that? Because in a good way sometimes with songwriting you're on autopilot, you know again the source Where do these ideas come

from? We can pretend they come from us. If most creative people are honest, you're like, well, what part of you did it come from? You know, the good ones, they just come. So, you know, and that's why even when I do all these, it's funny to be talking to you in this period where I've just done a big wave of press and interviews. And there are times where I do my best to contextualize things and talk about what I was thinking or what the band was thinking without ever getting too personal or playing myself by sharing things I don't want to share, talking about special people in my life and what they've been through, all this stuff that I find distasteful. But so, you know, you do your best,

but every once in a while I do kind of feel like, I wish I could say to a lot of people, you know, I'll get back to you in 10 years because only with time will I have some sense of it. And, you know, I can, when you sit down and say, what was going through your head when you were writing the song? almost always

The answer is kind of Nothing, the ideas come from some other place and then you have some fun arranging them and talking about them But that comes after it comes after the inspired moment is not intellectual, right? Then the intellectual work happens after is like, what does it mean? Like, I know I like the way this sounds. Yes. I know this works in the song. What's it about? Right.

And I've always liked the metaphor of your discography is like a bit of a story. And you know, sometimes chapter three makes more sense when you get to chapter five and you say, right, now I see how that was a bridge or that was a detour or that was a setup. Music